CHAPTER XVII.
SOCIALLY, as I have said, Mr. Batcham represented one of our cold weather phenomena. They remain phenomena, the globe-trotters, notwithstanding the regularity of their reappearance, flashing like November comets across the tranquil Anglo-Indian mind, which refuses to accustom itself to one class of its heavenly visitors any more than to the other. It is inaccurate, however, to use any figure of speech which represents Mr. Batcham as a meteoric body. He had his prescribed orbit—it is all laid down in Murray—and he circled through it, revolving regularly upon the axis of an excellent digestion with great gravity of demeanor. When he appeared upon Calcutta’s horizon, Calcutta could only put up a helpless eye-glass and writhe wearily until the large red luminary dipped again in the west. Then for a week it set at nought and mocked him. Then it unanimously forgot him, and was only reminded of his unnecessary existence afterward by the acerbity of the Englishman’s comments upon his intelligence, which was entirely deserved.
It was interesting to watch Mr. Batcham in the process of forming an opinion of Anglo-Indian society; that is, of making his observations match the rags and tags of ideas about us which he had gathered together from various popular sources before coming out. They were curious, Mr. Batcham’s impressions, and they led him into even greater discreetness of conduct than would naturally be shown by one of the largest manufacturers of the North of England, of sound evangelical views and inordinate abdominal development, travelling in search of Truth. In the doubtful mazes of the flippant Anglo-Indian capital Mr. Batcham felt that it behoved him to wrap the capacious mantle of his virtue well about him and to be very heedful of his walk and conversation. He kept a sharp eye open for invitations to light and foolish behaviour on the part of possible Mrs. Hawksbees and Mrs. Mallowes whom he met at Government House, and he saw a great many. When Lady Blebbins asked him if Mrs. Batcham were with him, Mr. Batcham said to himself, “There is certainly something behind that!” and when Mrs. Walter Luff, who is as proper as proper can be, proposed to drive him about the Maidan in her barouche, Mr. Batcham said coyly but firmly that Mrs. Luff must excuse him for asking, but was her husband to be of the party? Some such uncompromising front Mr. Batcham showed to temptation in forms even more insidious than these. I need not say that he never in any case failed to make a careful note of it; and I have no doubt that long before this reaches you the glaring facts will have been confided with inculpating initials to the sympathetic British public through the columns of the Times over the bashful signature of Jonas Batcham.
Mr. Batcham saw no reason for concealing his preconceived ideas of Anglo-Indian society from any of the Anglo-Indians he met—our morals embarrassed him as little as he supposed that they embarrassed us. He discussed them with us in candid sorrow, he enquired of us about them, he told us exactly to what extent he considered the deterioration of the ethical sense amongst us was to be ascribed to the climate. He spoke calmly and dispassionately about these things, as an indifferent foreigner might speak about the exchange value of the rupee or the quality of Peliti’s ices. He seemed to think that as a subject of conversation we should rather like it, that his investigations would have a morbid interest for us. It was reported that he approached an A.-D.-C. in uniform with the tentative remark that he believed Simla was a very immoral place, and that the A.-D.-C. in uniform made with great difficulty three wrinkles in his forehead—it is almost impossible for an A.-D.-C. in uniform to wrinkle himself—and said with calm surprise, “We are Simla,” subsequently reporting the matter to the Viceroy and suggesting the bastinado. The story adds that the Viceroy said that nothing could be done, because an M. P. was certain to go home and tell. But this is the merest rumour.
Mr. Batcham found the Brownes disappointing in this respect as he found them disappointing in other respects. They were not extravagant, they were not in debt, and Mrs. Browne neither swore nor smoked cigarettes nor rode in steeplechases. Mr. Batcham investigated them until he found them quite hopelessly proper, when he put them down as the shining and praiseworthy exception that proves the rule, and restricted his enquiries to the private life of their neighbours. Thus, driving upon the Red Road in the evening and encountering a smart young pair in a cabriolet, Mr. Batcham would demand, “Who is that lady?”
“That’s Mrs. Finsley-Jones,” Mrs. Browne would reply.
“And with whom,” Mr. Batcham would continue severely, “is Mrs. Finsley-Jones driving?”
“With Mr. Finsley-Jones.”